Ahhh politics. It never ceases to amaze.
Political Party registration is one of those things that doesn’t really have a deadline attached to it; you can more or less knock up and put your forms in whenever you reach the Australian Electoral Commission‘s requirements for party registration. It’s how Jacqui Lambie was able to get a new acronym after bolting from the Palmer United disaster at warp-speed.
The problem is, is that this means it’s really not that difficult to get a political party registered. You just need someone with the motivation to be able to do it.
And as such, the ‘Love Australia or Leave‘ party is now officially registered with the AEC, and is now seeking election funding as a result.
The registration, which is official as of October 12th, is now on the AEC political party directory for all to see.
There’s a lot to unpack here, but immediately both the acronym ‘LAOL‘ (which is one letter off where they should be), and the registered logo – a blank map of Australia with the word “FULL” written in standard Stencil font – leap out at you.
But if the name Kim Vuga isn’t instantly recognisable to you, here’s a quick little refresher:
Vuga was that “we’re already living among the enemy” charming Townsville grandmother who navigated the horrors of SBS‘s third season of ‘Go Back To Where You Came From‘ and somehow came out of there completely unchanged.
The head of the party, Vuga had an unsuccessful tilt at the Federal Senate at this year’s Federal Election as an independent. But now her ~wonderful~ party has copped registration, you can expect to see its name appear on future ballot sheets should she choose to run again.
The party already has a website that looks like the final project of a prison education course, and a long list of policies that… look, fair play to ’em, they at least start out okay-ish before everything takes a predictable and terrifying header off a cliff.
For example, they’re really into:
- “Preservation of democracy in Australia.”
- “Preservation of the rights of the individual and equality of opportunity for all.”
- “Preservation of the freedom of press, radio, television as a means of communication in Australia.”
- “Conservation of Australia’s natural resources and environment.”
See? Not too bad so far.
But then oh, no. Oh no, no, no, no, no, no:
- “Stop the Islamisation of Australia.”
- “The withdrawal of Australia from the UN.”
- “Revision of the Foreign Aid policy.”
- “Revision of the Immigration policy.”
- “Reintroduction of National Service.”
- “The right to bear arms.”
- “National Profiling scheme for people with anti-social (Jihadist) behaviour.”
Hoooo boy.
‘Course there’s also the weirdly hard-lined and contradictory nature of the statement “Love Australia or Leave,” which suggests that if there are bits about Australia’s current state that they themselves don’t explicitly love (i.e. everything mentioned above) that they too should leave.
But either way, that party is officially registered with the AEC now, which by extension means that it has at least 500 “members” attached to it.
Enjoy mulling that little bit of info around for the rest of the afternoon.
Source: AEC.
